


time won't be enough, to make you fall in love

by sudden sky (patchworklove)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dan Howell Needs A Hug, Everyone Is Gay, Friends to Lovers, Gay Dan Howell, Gay Phil Lester, M/M, Oblivious, Phil Lester Needs a Hug, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-30 04:30:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20091307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patchworklove/pseuds/sudden%20sky
Summary: phil lester's first year of university, and how he's oblivious to how much he and dan howell like each other





	time won't be enough, to make you fall in love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [icosmics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/icosmics/gifts).

> title from ma cherie by palaye royale (a whole bop and a half if you ask me)
> 
> i'm a sucker for university au's so i just HAD to write one
> 
> for icosmics bc she's my best friend and all of my writing is dedicated to her

phil regrets choosing to stay in the dorms this school year. he just HAD to be independent, huh? the pipes rattling in the bathroom next to his dorm have woken him up. what kind of monster is showering at 3 in the morning? no one does that!

he checks the clock, only for it to read  _ 03:44. _

phil angrily storms to the bathroom and yells to the person in the shower stall.

“what are you doing showering at this hour?! the pipes woke me up!” 

the person turns off the water.

“i literally just got here, how the fuck was i supposed to know that your room was right next to the bathroom!” 

they go back to their shower.

“if you shower at 3 in the fucking morning again, i’m going to kill you.” phil groans. normally, he wouldn’t threaten death on anyone, but people aren’t really the best at 3 am.

“thanks, i’d appreciate that!” they call back to him.

phil just shakes his head and walks back to his room, hoping to fall asleep again when the person finishes their shower.

-

of course he’s running late for his first day at uni. 

phil blames the shower person. they were the one keeping him up with those stupid pipes. 

now he has to run all the way across campus for some english course where he’ll just barely make it and all the good seats are taken.

phil doesn’t even have coffee to calm his nerves. 

at last, he finally makes it to the lecture hall. thankfully, there’s a spot that’s open close to the door. but when he sees who’s right next to the spot, he almost dies.

it’s the shower person.

_ “just my luck!” _

phil takes his seat anyways. he doesn’t want to draw any attention to himself by walking down to find another seat. 

“i hope you get used to being awake at 3 in the morning. things are kind of like that with uni students, if you’ve seen the movies.” they giggle.

phil frowns. “movies are fictional, university isn’t totally like that, is it?”

“dan. nice to meet you.” he holds out his hand for phil to shake.

“uh-, phil, hi, nice to meet you too.” he shakes his hand awkwardly.

“i like your shirt.”

phil looks down to see that he’s wearing a muse shirt.

“thank you! they’re my favorite band!”

they’re not really paying attention to the lecture, and phil thinks that it’ll be nice to have someone to talk to during english.

-

dan and phil somehow run into each other all the time. first, it was at a takeaway place down the street. then, it was at a movie theater. now, it’s at the library. and they’re both checking out the same book for their english class.

“this is getting really freaky.” dan says.

“i can’t help it!”

dan just laughs.

“do you wanna study with me in my room? to be honest, i’m not actually sure what i’m supposed to be doing.” he asks.

phil beams. “definitely!”

their “studying” goes all the way into the middle of the night. dan and phil keep getting distracted and going off topic for them to actually study.

“it’s unhealthy to eat after 7pm.” phil says, watching dan just dig into the leftovers from the dining hall.

“time is a fucking illusion, and this course is annoying me.” 

phil laughs at him. 

“why are you here at uni if you’re so stressed about it?” he asks.

dan hesitates for a moment. “just felt like that’s what i had to do next. i don’t really have an end goal or an idea of what i want to get a degree in.”

phil grabs the other fork and steals food from dan’s plate.

“get your own food, mister.”

-

hanging out becomes a regular occurence. sometimes they study, sometimes they don’t. 

but it’s fun hanging out with him and even the other people in their dorm. he’s gotten close to chris and pj, the people next door to his room. 

right now, dan, phil, chris and pj are playing twister in chris and pj’s room. dan already lost, so he went to the bathroom.

“you guys are such a couple, i swear.” pj laughs.

“for the last time, we are not a couple!” phil grumbles.

“maybe not in  _ that  _ way, but i still consider you to be a couple of idiots.” 

phil just facepalms.

“it’s only been like two months! i don’t even think he’s into boys! dammit, i regret telling you guys that.”

“he’s always looking at you, there’s no way he doesn’t like you at this point!” chris says.

at this time, dan walks into the room.

“who doesn’t like phil?” he asks.

pj smacks chris upside the head. “nothing! no one!”

“okay then,” dan says, dragging out the o.

-

phil stays home from lecture a few weeks later because he comes down with something. he’s sneezing and coughing, and this throat is sore. it’s probably the flu, but he can’t be arsed to go to the doctor a few blocks away because he can’t drive.

so instead, he’s laying in bed. 

phil’s phone is running out of battery, so he has to stand up to the only outlet on the other side of the room.

he now realizes this was a mistake, as he takes a few steps before suddenly fainting.

when phil wakes up, he’s back on his bed. dan’s sitting on the end of it, scrolling through his phone and holding a bowl with a spoon.

“what happened?”

“oh, hey phil! the door was unlocked, so i brought you chicken soup because your sneezing was distracting me earlier. also i came to make sure you didn’t die after i heard a very distinctive thud.” 

phil sits up and takes the soup from dan’s hand. “thank you. you should probably leave so that i don’t get you sick.” he coughs.

“it’s fine, i’ll live.”

dan stays there for a little bit, keeping phil company and showing him memes every once in a while. 

phil falls asleep later that evening, and when he wakes up there’s a note from dan.

_ had to catch up on studying soz. raid my mini fridge if you want more soup when you wake up _

-

there’s a loud knocking on his door in the middle of the night, right before finals. phil just wants to sleep and get through them so that he can go home for holiday. he opens the door anyways, and he sees dan.

“dan, what are you doing? it’s 3am.” he rubs his eyes.

“i don’t care if it’s 3bm! let me in!” dan yells.

phil lets him in anyways.

“i’m too stressed! this law final makes me wanna fucking pull my hair out!” dan throws a notebook stuffed with papers onto the ground before laying down right on top of it.

phil sits down right next to him. “you’re okay, i’m here. why is law stressing you out?”

“because i don’t understand it, and i wanted to do it to make my parents proud of me.”

“but you’re not proud of yourself, dan. you have to live your own life and not what your parents want.”

“yeah, i guess so.” he mumbles.

“look, if you don’t wanna be a lawyer you don’t have to be. what subjects are you interested in?” phil asks.

“um, i like art and theater.” 

phil rubs dan’s back. it used to make him feel better when he was a kid, so hopefully it will make dan feel better. “dan, you can get a degree for pursuing art and theater! it’s not too late to switch next terms classes either, so hopefully you’ll think about what i said. just focus on passing your finals this week.”

“thanks, phil. love you.” he mumbles before drifting off into sleep.

phil smiles.

he grabs the extra pillow and places it under dan’s head so that he’ll sleep comfortably, because he doesn’t wanna lift him up and disturb him. phil also places his duvet on top of dan.

“goodnight, dan.”

-

“phil! i did it! i told them!” dan says, beaming.

phil matches that grin. “that’s great! i’m happy for you!”

it’s the day after winter holiday, and phil has barely gotten settled into his dorm room again before dan barged in. he doesn’t mind though, it’s dan.

“yeah! i have no idea what i was so afraid of.” dan says.

-

phil’s studying in the library with pj when he gets a call from dan. 

“hey, what’s up?” 

“do you wanna get pretend to be my boyfriend and get dinner with me on friday? it’s a valentine’s discount and it’s my favorite restaurant but i’m broke.” dan asks, talking at the speed of light.

“wait, slow down, what?”

dan repeats his sentence.

“yeah sure no problem!”

“great, thank you!” dan hangs up the phone after that.

pj nudges him. “oi, who was that?”

“just dan. getting dinner on friday.”

pj gasps. “it’s valentine’s day! things are getting steamy!”

phil rolls his eyes at him. “it’s not like that. it’s never been like that. it’s a thing we do because we’re in college and we don’t have that much money.”

“y’all will have gotten your master’s degrees and still not be together yet, i swear.”

-

“this is nice.” phil says. he’s still holding dan’s hand across the table even though the waiter has left ages ago to go to the kitchen.

“yeah. thank you for doing this with me.” dan says.

“you’re welcome.”

they’re talking throughout dinner, and they hold hands all the way back to the university, even though they’ve left the restaurant already.

“hey phil?” dan asks as they’re standing outside his room.

“yeah?”

“thank you for helping me out last quarter. i probably would’ve failed all my classes or would’ve continued being a lawyer if it weren’t for you to tell me otherwise.” dan laughs.

phil smiles. “as much as i appreciate that, it was all you. you were the one who changed your major and told your parents. that wasn’t me.”

“still. love you.”

“love you too.”

phil still feels butterflies everytime they say it to each other, even though it’s a friendly “i love you.”

but this time, it doesn’t feel so friendly. dan leans closer to him and kisses his cheek as he walks into his room.

phil’s now more confused and puzzled than he was before.

-

things suddenly get more  _ flirty _ between them.

it’s not official though.

dan just says a lot of things that make phil weak. phil takes every opportunity he gets to hold his hand.

phil thinks that dan’s just a really affectionate person, and pj just tells them to  _ just kiss already _ .

they do kiss once. but they’re drunk out of their minds playing spin the bottle with chris and pj. dan says it doesn’t count because he kissed “pj’s fucking frog mouth” just moments before, to which pj punches his arm.

phil’s happy with dan just being his friend and not his boyfriend if it means that dan is in his life.

-

they find themselves kissing again about a month later. 

dan and phil are at a bar together, because chris (the little shit that he is) dragged them there, and although they could leave chris alone, they’re not mean enough to do that.

this time, they’re not drunk though. they’re completely sober so that they could watch out for chris and take him back to the dorms safely.

except a girl keeps hitting on dan, even though dan’s said that he’s  _ gay  _ and she just  _ won’t fucking listen _ .

so phil steps in and kisses dan, pissing the girl off.

“thanks for that.”

“course. i’d always do that for you.”

although they both know that the other one is gay, phil still doesn’t really know if dan likes phil like that or not. phil’s also scared that their friendship will end if things don’t work out.

he sighs as he falls asleep on dan’s shoulder that night in chris’s room. 

_ things are just so fucking confusing. _

-

the school year is almost ending. it’s already may, and phil still hasn’t made a move on dan as chris would so crudely put it.

chris and pj think that they’re practically dating already, since they spend all their time together.

phil just shrugs and says that he’s fine.

but life surprises him, and while the four of them are out lighting fireworks to celebrate their freshman year of uni being done, dan confesses something.

“i like you. a lot actually. can’t believe it’s taken me the whole school year to figure it out.”

phil grabs dan’s hand and smiles. 

“yeah?”

dan nods. “no more waiting around.”

they kiss passionately, and dan sneaks a middle finger at chris and pj when they start whooping and cheering. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank u 
> 
> tumblr: fearoftryinq  
twitter: twotonques


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